AnnaLynne McCord Says She Experimented with Cutting, BDSM

AnnaLynne McCord has opened up about her childhood trauma and abuse, and the different behaviors and coping mechanisms she experienced as a result.

Speaking candidly on Wednesday’s episode of the “Call Me Daddy” podcast, the “90210” actress recalled being “abusive” to herself because the “level of torture” in her youth was “so horrific” that she would attempt to remove any pain reception.

“I just stopped feeling pain,” AnnaLynne began. “The self harming started just because I couldn’t feel anything. The level of torture that I went through as a child that I now remember was so horrific that my brain said no, she can’t feel, so we’re gonna shut off feeling.”

In attempts to counter the numbness, the former model, 34, would also find herself in sexual relationships that practiced sadism and masochism. “A big part of BDSM for me was just trying to feel anything in my body at all,” she added.

“I was opening up Pandora’s box sexually without consciously knowing why I might like these things, why they might turn me on the way they did,” she continued. “Because our beautiful brains that put pain and pleasure together to try to help us, ended up keeping me in a body that would go on to abuse herself for a very long time.”

“People laugh and say, ‘Oh, I have a high tolerance for pain’ — you should ask yourself why. Because that’s not a good thing. We have pain for a reason, it’s to let us know something’s wrong. And you don’t win awards for having a high tolerance for pain. That’s unkind to your body.”

Only after she became a success in Hollywood did AnnaLynne discover she had a lifelong battle with dissociative identity disorder, the disease formerly known as multiple personality disorder.

“You are not multiple personalities when you experience DID. You are fragmented versions of yourself,” she explained. “The reason that the brain splits in this regard, it’s always a protective mechanism.”

One of the versions of herself was called “Little Anna” where she used baby talk when dealing with the opposite sex.

“I had this mechanism with men where I thought I had to be really small. And it wasn’t a conscious thought,” AnnaLynne said. “Bad things happened if I wasn’t a good little girl, who was the special girl, who did the things that she was supposed to do.”

“I didn’t know why I had to just give my body to people and I didn’t realize that I was doing it because I was hoping that I’d get some love back,” she added. “And I was so desperate to be loved because I was so alone and had been so alone for so long.”

She would eventually seek help with a doctor who explored her repressed memories and taught her how to heal.

“I want my quality of life to get better and that’s why I stepped into this healing process,” she said in April. “I want to thrive.”